Michelle Forbes Quotes

I don't have what German directors call 'a concept' - a solid, fixed sense of the pattern that you should impose on the given work. I always get the feeling that I am raking up the earth rather than laying down the concrete.

I really don't work to a plan, but I just do what interests me and what I like to do.

Shooting should not be about delivering something I've prepared; it should be a live process of finding things out. When things happen that you haven't planned, that's when the film comes alive.

I do not plan my fiction any more than I normally plan woodland walks; I follow the path that seems most promising at any given point, not some itinerary decided before entry.

I really like to experiment. That's the only way I can work. It's instinctive.

And I don't have any specific steps to take because I don't start the same way every time. But there is a knowing when it's enough and you can leave it alone.

I've never been one of those guys who storyboards every frame, because that would take away some of the mystery and some of the fun.

I never make a choice thinking about the results. I'm never gonna take a role or a project thinking where this could - what this could bring me or something like that, because you've got no control about anything, actually.

In using chance operations, the mind is enriched.

I am not very good at planning things, actually, but I believe that things happen when they need to and when they have to.

I never map things out in advance. It would be better if I did and more economical in terms of time, but I've found that if you work out a plot line from beginning to end, at the beginning it becomes very rational.

I love art so much because of curiosity. At the start of a painting, I know 10 percent of what the painting will be, and then I have to improvise the whole thing.

I am always living in the now, so I like what fate brings to you. That's always fun for me. To have a process and someone be like, 'How about this?' And you just grab onto that and see where it takes you.

There's never anything planned. I just do what I feel is best for the song at that time.

My general approach to writing fiction is that you try to have as few conceptual notions as possible and you just respond to the energy that the story is making rather than having a big over plan. I think if you have a big over plan, the danger is that you might just take your plan and then you bore everybody. I always joke that it's like going on a date with index cards. You know, at 7:30 p.m. I should ask about her mother. You keep all the control to yourself but you are kind of insulting to the other person.

I don't believe the writer should know too much where he's going. If he does, he runs into old man blueprint—old man propaganda.

For me, the sketchbooks are more like a secret and wholly spontaneous jeu d'esprit and some of them I like as much as anything I have ever done. They are invariably without premeditation. I mean not only that I have no plan when I make them, I also have no plan to make them.

Really good director sometimes will kind of see what the actors are doing and then get in there. Because there's the realization that you have to find it a little bit and then kind of clump around and sniff it out.

You see something happening and you bang away at it. Either you get what you saw or you get something else--and whichever is better you print.

I'm always open to new stuff. I don't sit and try to figure out what to do, I just wait for an idea to come.

When you work with an actor and then you discover new things that are better, I think you gotta be free to be able to go with the new things that you're finding. I think that's very important. I have a strong idea when I go to shoot a movie but I also love to discover things when I'm on set as well.

If you don't have a plan, you can end up doing some interesting things.

I like to let each thing happen - direct it a little consciously, maybe - but just kind of follow the vibrations I get in each particular circumstance. We don't plan theatrics. We hardly ever know which set we'll play.

Sometimes you work with somebody you've never heard of because you just feel like working.

Often times, I'm surprised by what I'm writing or what I'm playing, and then that inspires me to keep going with it, so it ends up being a very adventurous process.